FBI Director Christopher Wray says in first 11 months of fiscal year, agents were unable to unlock over half the mobile devices it tried to access, over 6,900+
Amazon Tanks Etsy, Ford's Chariot Stumbles Tyler Lee / Ubergizmo : FBI Says Not Having Access To Encrypted Data Is A Huge Problem BBC : FBI failed to access 7,000 encrypted mobile devices Rajesh Pandey / iPhone Hacks : FBI Chief Says Inability to Retrieve Data from Encrypted Devices a ‘Huge, Huge Problem’ Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider : FBI director says smartphone encryption hindering investigations ‘across the board’ Mike Flaminio / Insanely Great Mac : FBI director describes secure encryption a huge problem Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : FBI chief says inability to access data on encrypted mobile devices is a ‘huge, huge problem’ Juli Clover / MacRumors : FBI Unable to Retrieve Encrypted Data From 6,900 Devices Over the Last 11 Months Jack Morse / Mashable : The FBI has a ‘huge’ problem with your smartphone CyanLights / reddit.com : SecurityFBI Chief Says Encryption Is ‘Huge Problem’ Christian Zibreg / iDownloadBlog.com : FBI couldn't retrieve data from more than half of the mobile devices it attempted to break into Dell Cameron / Gizmodo : The FBI Can't Stop Fearmongering About Encryption Tweets: Zack Whittaker / @zackwhittaker : 2015: James Comey says terrorists use encryption. 2016: James Comey denounces devices with encryption. 2017: James Comey tweets from iPhone. pic.twitter.com/dybN0UXUbA Joseph Cox / @josephfcox : Me, FOIA: how many devices can you not decrypt? FBI: we don't keep those records Me: hmm, really? shame FBI: http://apnews.com/... Me: Ben Schreckinger / @schreckreports : But didn't the FBI also say it couldn't access the SB shooter's iPhone without Apple's help when really it could? http://www.theguardian.com/... http://twitter.com/... Barton Gellman / @bartongellman : Hide-the-ball is dishonest & routine when someone asks for data behind USG claims. “We don't know, unless it serves our point to say we do.” http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Christopher Wray's 6,900+ figure puts a number on a fight that has been running since iOS 8 hardened the iPhone against law enforcement — an arc that includes Apple's refusal to build a backdoor in the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone court order and the FBI's workarounds, including the NAND-mirroring technique used to brute-force PINs without Apple's help.
The number also lands in a policy environment where pro-encryption lawmakers like Ron Wyden and Zoe Lofgren have pushed for statutory backdoor bans while a McCaul-Warner commission weighs alternatives, and where Apple has already refused foreign governments' demands — including China's request for source code. Wray is effectively converting a legal standoff into a quantified operational grievance.
First-order effects
- FBI investigators working cases involving seized phones now face a documented access gap on more than half of targeted devices, strengthening the bureau's talking point that encryption 'hinders investigations across the board.'
- Apple faces renewed pressure to justify its default-encryption stance, since Wray's tally reframes the company's refusal to build a backdoor as thousands of closed evidence files rather than one high-profile refusal.
Second-order effects
- Congressional players split along existing lines — Wyden and Lofgren's backdoor-ban push versus the McCaul-Warner commission's search for technical alternatives — get fresh ammunition, forcing the encryption debate back onto the legislative agenda with hard numbers attached.
- Third-party forensics firms offering unlock methods like NAND mirroring become more strategically valuable to agencies locked out by default encryption, shifting some of the access market away from device makers entirely.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the structural question moves from whether any single company can be compelled to unlock a phone to whether governments will mandate lawful-access capabilities at the platform level — with vendors weighing US demands against refusals like Apple's stance toward China's source-code request.
- Device makers' encryption defaults increasingly function as geopolitical and regulatory positioning, not just security engineering, as each government demand becomes precedent for others.
The trend: Default device encryption is turning law-enforcement access into a standing quantified dispute between governments and platform makers, fought through Congress, courts, and third-party forensics rather than one-off court orders.